Ed Henry to Jay Carney: Why did the president support tax breaks for big oil in 2005?

posted at 5:25 pm on March 29, 2012 by Tina Korbe

It’s the president’s present answer to high gas prices: End tax breaks for oil companies! He didn’t always sing the same tune, though. As a U.S. senator in 2005, the president voted for an energy bill that included more than $2 billion in tax breaks for oil companies.

Fox News’ Ed Henry called the president on this hypocrisy today by posing a question to poor Jay Carney, who had no explanation. From The Right Scoop comes the exchange (click the image to watch):

Carney: What I can tell you Ed is that the oil and gas companies in this country are making record profits, now, in 2012. The price at the pump is very high and that is plenty of incentive for these companies to continue drill, to continue to explore, to continue to develop energy sources here in the United States and abroad. There is no reason for the American taxpayer to subsidize that activity.

Henry: So why’d he vote for it?

Carney: I haven’t examined the vote, or what the prices were at the time, or the whole bill it was attached to. What I know and what the President knows is that this year, 2012, when we are seeing high prices at the pump, high prices in the international oil markets and high profits for the oil and gas companies, there is no reason to continue these kinds of subsidies. Take that argument to the people, I don’t think they’ll go along with it.

Carney inadvertently hinted at a partial explanation for the president’s anti-oil-and-gas-company rhetoric: It plays well with the American people. According to a recent poll, Americans do, in fact, hold oil companies and oil-producing countries more responsible for high gas prices than the president.

According to a recent poll, Americans do, in fact, hold oil companies and oil-producing countries more responsible for high gas prices than the president.

…I hope that’s one of those phony socialist media “polls” that over count d-cRAT socialists and not an honest, accurate Rasmussen poll. I’d hate to think that normal people are that uninformed/misinformed.

Can you imagine being the person selected to be the press secretary for this bumbling idiot sycophant in chief? Your career outside the time you spent as press secretary would be limited to working for other liberal progressive socialist pigs forever.

He must be getting paid pretty good to permanently slaughter his future like that. Pretty lucrative stuff I guess, lying your ass off daily for a communist posing as a president.

Good thing President Open Mic got out ahead of the vote in the senate today and pointed his bony finger at big oil, so he could blame a do nothing congress when they didn’t pass the end of subsidies as big oil knows them. He was for the subsidy before he was against it. Of course, he doesn’t mind subsidizing big oil in Brazil. Maybe Ed could ask Carney about that next time.

Can you imagine being the person selected to be the press secretary for this bumbling idiot sycophant in chief? Your career outside the time you spent as press secretary would be limited to working for other liberal progressive socialist pigs forever.

The same thing applies to the Solicitor General who got trotted out to defend the administration’s sh!t sandwich in front of SCOTUS this week.

He looked incompetent because the marching orders he gave him were to defend the indefensible.

Now that the law looks doomed, people are piling on him for doing a bad job instead of saying “Wow, I guess the bill is just THAT poorly written.”

Most of what people are calling subsidies are tax credits than just about any business can get. There are a few that are unique to other businesses that develop and extract natural resources, but it is not like the government is writing checks to Chevron and Exxon like they do to say farmers and pseudo farmers subsidies

Ed Henry to Jay Carney: Why did the president support tax breaks for big oil in 2005?

Hopefully, the WH will get the “eloquent” Donald Verilli to argue the defense of OPBZO’s past vote. That should prove to be as side-splitting funny as his laughable “defense” of OBOZOCARE at SCOTUS.

BTW: Verilli didn’t have to stoop to trying to defend the indefensible OBOZOCARE atrocity. He could have shown the courage that Archibald Cox and Eliot Richardson did when they were ordered to do a similarly reprehensible, indefensible action by Nixon and RESIGN with their dignity and self-respect in tact.

BTW: Verilli didn’t have to stoop to trying to defend the indefensible OBOZOCARE atrocity. He could have shown the courage that Archibald Cox and Eliot Richardson did when they were ordered to do a similarly reprehensible, indefensible action by Nixon and RESIGN with their dignity and self-respect in tact.

Cox and Richardson quit rather than discharge an independent counsel investigating Nixon. I don’t know of a SG who quit because they didn’t feel they could argue the government’s case.

0bama is continuing his policy of seperating himself from Congress, and we in the TEA Party want to assist him with that effort by kicking out the LIBERAL congress critters and putting in place actual representatives.

Whether 0bama or Sketchy wins, the fight will be the same. Us against Communist styled Socialist programs.

Quit calling it a subsidy. Not giving money you earn to the government is not the same as the government giving you money you didn’t earn.

All money derives from transactions between producers and consumers; it is not some sort of economic manna from government heaven. We give it to the government by our consent for our purposes. The government does not give it to us out of its beneficience.

Sorry to carp but this adopting of the bass-ackward liberal talking points is self-defeating.

It’s the president’s present answer to high gas prices: End tax breaks for oil companies!

How to lower the price of oil: Raise taxes on oil companies!
How to lower the price of solar panels: Lower taxes on solar-panel companies!
How to lower the price of health care: Raise taxes on health care!
How to lower the price of college: Lower taxes on colleges!

Don’t listen to this nonsense, that’s their answer for everything: I’ll take it to the people. It’s the same thing he said during the debt ceiling debate: “don’t call my bluff, Eric, I’ll take it to the people”.

That’s his answer for grabbing all the power he wants: the people want him to do all this crap. The people want him to take ownership in the auto industry, the banking industry, the mortgage industry, the student loan industry, the health care industry, raise the debt all you want, borrow ad nauseum, pass bogus stimuli that do nothing to move us into prosperity. Rush was right: when the polls favor him, it’s a mandate for unlimited power; when the polls are against him, the people answer polls stupidly. There is no scenario in his mind where every rational American does not completely agree with his political agenda.

Same thing with the jobs bill: he made a joint session address saying “pass my bill RIGHT NOW” but didn’t submit it to Congress until a week later. Meanwhile, he’s going around the country saying “they need to pass my bill now” “they need to pass my bill now” “they need to pass my bill now” while Republicans passed 15 different jobs bills, most of which already did the things he proposed, and Reid was in no hurry to bring any of those bills, nor the president’s bill, to the Senate floor.

Aren’t these “subsidies” actually income tax deductions for legitimate business expenses? That is, the oil companies are paying money for legitimate purposes and deducting those expenses as business deductions. At best–AT BEST–the only argument is that they are being able to deduct when they ought to capitalize the expense and then depreciate that amount over a number of years and the period over which they can depreciate might be shorter than they might be. In short, we’re talking about timing differences.

The point is that Obama gives boneheaded supporters the impression that Congress is writing checks to the oil companies (that is, subsidies), and that’s just false.

As Rush often says, “a random act of journalism”. Notable because it has become so exceedingly rare.
And because ‘rebellion’ against the status quo is so easy, we can expect more of it for that reason alone. Ambitious journalists will do it more often, because it is now the easiest way for them to stand out from the herd of Democrat stenographers.

“Well, Ed, as you know, back in 2005 it was more politically expedient to give big oil some breaks, After all, what was their average per gallon price? $1.85? Now that energy prices have skyrocketed, necessarily, it is time to end the subsidies for Big Oil. For the sake of political expedience.”

Why wouldn’t oil exploration be a usual and necessary business expense for an oil company just like equipment, payroll, phone, etc. etc.? What they are talking about is penalizing oil companies becasue a weak dollar and inflation are sending gas prices through the roof.

Quit calling it a subsidy. Not giving money you earn to the government is not the same as the government giving you money you didn’t earn.

All money derives from transactions between producers and consumers; it is not some sort of economic manna from government heaven. We give it to the government by our consent for our purposes. The government does not give it to us out of its beneficience.

Sorry to carp but this adopting of the bass-ackward liberal talking points is self-defeating.

What Democrats can never seem to rap their minds around is that most producers are global companies. It doesn’t make one bit of difference to them if we eliminate our tax incentives, they’ll just move their equipment to a more economically viable location. Be it Finland, Canada, Iraq, etc. They don’t have any allegiance to the U.S. government but they do to their stockholders.

Zero voted for the subsidies before he voted against them. Why not double down on gas prices ? They are only $4.35 here in So Cal. For the Libs outside of Hollywood, we need prices at twice that before the Jerry Brown voters get upset.